I was trying to find my way out of Norwich at eleven this morning, when I noticed a few 'dead' buses - no engine or lights (inside or out) - then the penny dropped.
I pulled over at the first bit of road without double yellows (I bet some would book you for anything).
It was heartening to see the number of vehicles that pulled away at two minutes past.
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I slotted into a layby for the 2 minute silence, couple of other vehicles pulled away afterwards also.
Popped into Baldock services afterwards, two fine kilted chaps collecting for the Legion in their dress uniforms....disappointingly few travellers wearing their poppies.
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Was well observed in my office. We were all reminded via email and company intranet that the silence would be observed
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"I slotted into a layby for the 2 minute silence"
Same here. Also, over last few days' had quite a few people where I got my "nice enamel pin badge poppy" from.
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>> Was well observed in my office. We were all reminded via email and company intranet
>> that the silence would be observed
>>
You shouldn't have needed to be reminded.
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Big ceremony in Norwich today for re-dedication of city war memorial which has just been re-built after years of being in a rather shabby state. Very large turn out with people of all ages there. Was good to see
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....Sorry guys I was on the phone rabbiting with an ex-squaddie mate, wouldn't mind but he is an ardent observer and we both went to the 2000 Parade in Whitehall....as I say sorry.
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I was at college all day today. At just before 11am more than 2,000 students and staff all left our classrooms and workshops and stood in the 500yd long main concourse of the college building. At the stroke of 11am the site agent sounded a handheld air-horn (effective, if a little unsubtle) and we all fell silent for the two minutes.
With the phrase "At the 11th hour, Of the 11th day, Of the 11th month, We will remember them" going around in my head, and with a couple of thousand other people, still and silent, in a normally bustling lively area, I admit I struggled to keep my composure.
Last edited by: Dave_TD {P} on Thu 11 Nov 10 at 22:22
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Missed it as I was on the M1 driving to Leeds for a funeral.
Hope to be in St Michael and all Angels church for Sunday's service.
Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
bears all its sons away;
they fly, forgotten, as a dream
dies at the opening day.
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At home today so watched the service on TV.
Can someone please tell me why the bunch of trouble makers who call themselves "Muslims Against Crusaders" weren't slammed up in pokey for 'enciting religious hatred'?
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Because our democratic society with freedom of speech which those brave people fought allows them to.
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Kevin,
re-arrange the words "game's the not candle worth' to make a well known phrase. Tiny minorities within minorities don't manage to encite anything.
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The company I work for observed the silence - we were told provided we were not in the middle of a conversation we could sign off for the silence.
At about five to 11 I took a call which had all the makings of a long conversation. After taking the customer's details and opening a file she said to me "I've just realised, it's nearly 11 - can I call you back in a few minutes, I'd like to observe the silence."
I told the customer that was fine, and I would be observing it too - made my day really.
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>Tiny minorities within minorities don't manage to encite anything.
As a follower of Jediism I demand the right to be offended. Harriet said I could!
Sulk...
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Well Kevin you have every right to be offended IMO !
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I missed it compleately. I was in the workshop, I didn't have the radio on and my watch was in a safe place away from the action.
I hope I wasn't doing anything too noisy at the time and I would have stopped if I'd known.
I don't suppose it made any difference in the great scale of things and there is no lack of respect by me anyway.
Ted
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....missed it...I don't suppose it made any difference in the great scale of things and there is no lack of respect by me anyway....
Same here.
I'm not entirely sure what I was doing, driving on the A1(M) in County Durham, I think.
I've been in courts in previous years in which the judge called a two-minute halt to the proceedings.
Funny how well the yobbos observe the silence when they think they'll be locked up if they don't.
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>> Well Kevin you have every right to be offended IMO !
Especially as he's a Jedi. May the force be with him.
Our company sounds the fire alarms briefly before the silence is to be followed (if you wish) in the offices.
Alan Sugar got into some bother for tweeting during the 2 minute silence I see.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Fri 12 Nov 10 at 05:21
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I had walked up to our local small village shop and I was the only person in there apart from the two assistants. They asked if I minded if they observed the two minutes silence, which of course I didn't.
It made me proud to be part of a small village and I have no doubt they would have done the same if there had no-one in there.
I'd planned to perch quietly on the church wall on the way back, under the trees in the wind and rain, anyway.
Pat
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Mrs C works in a "customer facing" role and had the joy of everyone silent and standing, when in walks a Young Person who goes straight up to her and demands "Excuse me but..EXCUSE ME... HELLO!!!..."
What would you have done?
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What would you have done?
Directed the YP to the nearest Railway Station hoping he's end up on the wrong train...:-)
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When I used to be one of the working classes, there would be a tannoy announcement.
I am a little annoyed actually, I arranged to go the the Imperial War Museum on Monday, with a little thought and planning I could have been there yesterday at 11.
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>> Mrs C works in a "customer facing" role and had the joy of everyone silent
>> and standing, when in walks a Young Person who goes straight up to her and
>> demands "Excuse me but..EXCUSE ME... HELLO!!!..."
>>
>>
>> What would you have done?
Happend to me, when I had a Christmas job in Next, I said just said "two minutes Silence" and pointed to my poppy, and pointed to where she wanted to be - no more said - there was no lack of respect on my part for that.
We did it on our office (open plan circa 200 + people) , its very heartnening to think that in this Country we still can join together by taking two minutes out which isnt a lot in the grand scheme of things as a warming silence fell on our office
Somones phone still rang though - tch!!!
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The two minute silence used to be observed for years after it was introduced, but then fell into disuse. Then "Armistice Day" was dropped, because it was inconvenient on a working day, and replaced by "Remembrance Sunday".
It is curious that Armistice Day has been revived so recently, and that it seems to have coincided with one of the least justified of wars for a long time. There seems to be more than a touch of the "Diana effect" about it. Could it just possibly be collective guilt, because we suspect that we have sent all those brave men into a pointless and counterproductive war, but can't think of a way of getting out of it?
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Didn't the revival coincide with the 50th anniversary of the end of WWII? The 1st Gulf War was over by then and there was a general view that the sacrifices made by the armed forces were worth remembering. Can't say I join in myself anymore even though I once wore the uniform. Personally, my view is that the sacrifices made more than two generations ago should not now lead to the country coming to a halt. Remembrance entails the act of remembering which is not possible for the vast majority of the population. It is time to move on. The Remebrance day services are sufficient for those who wish to partake.
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I think that's very well put, Cliff. I find it all a bit odd - what was wrong with two minutes' silence at 11am on Remembrance Sunday? People shouldn't be encouraged to feel pious for two minutes a year because British soldiers are dying unnecessarily, yet again.
Sorry if this offends.
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Even one of the Generals was said to be unhappy about the recent peak in reverence.
Quote today's Times
Lieutenant-General Sir Robert Fry expressed unease at the public's relationship with the Amred forces.
He warned "I think that the British people hold the Armed Forces in a state of excessive reverence at the present time. It is a greater infatuation than at any other stage of recent military history that I can recall."
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...Even one of the Generals was said to be unhappy about the recent peak in reverence...
I wonder how the general thinks 'excessive reverence' can be harmful?
Perhaps he's assuming such a relationship is bound to end in tears, and he would prefer one that is more normal and stable.
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He thinks it is becoming "mawkish" and the need to avoid "Diana Graceland stuff" and rather to "celebrate what is good"
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...it is becoming "mawkish" and the need to avoid "Diana Graceland stuff"...
Good points, well made.
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>> He thinks it is becoming "mawkish" and the need to avoid "Diana Graceland stuff" and
>> rather to "celebrate what is good"
>>
Pretty much my take on it too.
I'm uncomfortable about the modern habit of over sentimentalising things, flowers by the roadside for accident victims and hand wringing grief over a specimen like Jade Goody. I know the service people who lost their lives are not in the same category, but there is an element of insincere sympathy from a lot of people who feel they should follow the fashion for tears at the slightest excuse.
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...grief over a specimen like Jade Goody. I know the service people who lost their lives are not in the same category...
They are now, which is my slightly flippant way of agreeing with your post.
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Kipling, as often, put it rather well, in his poem "Tommy Atkins":
It's Tommy this and Tommy that,
And "sling him out, the brute !".
But it's "Then red line of heroes"
When the guns begin to shoot.
It's Tommy this and Tommy that,
And Tommy, go away!
But it's "Thank you, Mr Atkins"
When the band begins to play.
(from memory - I may have got it slightly wrong)
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The other point is that we now seem to have two charities competing for our funds... First and Foremost the Royal British Legion and now help for heroes (deliberately in small letters)... Both these two seem to be for the same thing, though hfh seem to relate to the modern conflicts, whereas the RBL cover both, surely there is no need for two?
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And its the hfh thats causing all the angst and the very one that is being accused of turning it into a Diana disneyesque sideshow
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Wonder if its anything to do with the publicity hfh seems to be getting from certain daily rags...
Royal British Legion will always get my money in preference to any pretenders...
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It's all right for a general to say it, if as many generals do he knows what he's talking about. But it's difficult to take a critical attitude to the vulgar and mawkish aspects of all this without seeming to align oneself with pacifists, crazed Islamist toerags and the rest.
Squaddies do put their lives on the line sometimes, occasionally for quite intense and prolonged periods and for wages and benefits which, while far better than they used to be when I was young, are still far from princely by, for example, police standards, in furtherance of British government policy. That is their metier and to their credit they do it. So if they don't mind a parade when they arrive back at Brize Norton it seems to me churlish to carp on the sidelines. Let their nippers and wives and idle passers-by call them heroes by all means. Some of them probably are after all. And paying tribute to war dead and wounded is only decent if you ask me.
The princess was another matter altogether. She was a good-looking celeb killed in a traffic accident because her boy friend's father didn't have proper security. I couldn't stand the outburst of hysteria and fabulation that went on over that one. I really thought the British had lost it properly. The phrase 'Pre-fascist' kept appearing in lights in my mind's eye.
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Had I been driving my bus then I would certainly have pulled over and turned the engine off for two minutes. However, I was on my break. One of the supervisors came in to the canteen and invited all the staff to join him on the bus station to observe the two minutes. I declined as I do not feel that I need to display my observance of the silence in public. I just sat quietly in the canteen, head bowed.
When I was driving buses in Southport I pulled over at 1100 one Remembrance Day and turned the engine off. After about thirty seconds of perfectly observed silence by my passengers, some self-important know-all came stomping down the bus demanding to know what was happening. I just pointed at my poppy and remained silent. This idiot then carried on haranguing me so I just carried on observing the silence and, once it was over, I opened the doors and firmly told the idiot that he was no longer welcome on my bus and that I would not be carrying on until he left. He then blathered on about him paying my wages and how I should show him respect. Well, that did it for me. In a very loud voice I said to him "Why the hell should I show you respect when you can't be bothered to do the same for all the people who have lost their lives at war? Now GET OFF MY BUS!". At this point, the other passengers joined in and started shouting at this fool, much to my delight. Eventually he got off, with very bad grace. It probably wasn't the best example of customer service I have ever provided and I could possibly have announced the silence to the passengers but why should I have done? Remembrance Day is a given and people should not need to be reminded.
Last edited by: VxFan on Wed 17 Nov 10 at 00:51
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...Royal British Legion will always get my money in preference to any pretenders...
It's a bit unkind to call Help for Heroes a 'pretender', although it has got plenty of Brass in Pocket.
It has raised £70m in three years which makes it, like it or not, a major player.
There's no way our injured servicemen would be getting the benefit of that money had the charity not been formed.
HfH concentrates on post-9/11 injuries and doesn't step on the toes of the legion.
Last edited by: Iffy on Sun 14 Nov 10 at 09:42
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It does step ont he toes of the legion.
How much of the money hfh had raised, would have gone into the pockets of the legion? Do people realise that hfh only helps certain members of the ex armed forces?
In effect, hfh is pushing WW2 & Korea & Malaya etc vets into the "forgotten"
Its pretty shameful really.
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...How much of the money hfh had raised, would have gone into the pockets of the legion?...
We will never know, but I suggest it's pennies.
HfH appeals to a much younger audience.
It's rubbish to suggest the hundreds of thousands who will download the X-Factor Heroes single would otherwise have given that money to the legion.
I reckon most legion givers are similar to me - they see it as a once a year event on Poppy Day,
People fundraise for HfH all the year round.
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>> People fundraise for HfH all the year round.
>>
>>
>>
As far as I know so do the RBL?!
I'm sorry, Iffy, but its a duplication and I'd rather the money be spent better than having two lots of staff to pay which is what has happened when we have two charities doing the same thing.
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Just to add a quote from HfH founder Bryn Parry:
"We ask all Help for Heroes supporters to buy and wear their poppy with pride.
"H4H is working closely with The Royal British Legion and all the Service charities as we unite to support 'our blokes'."
www.helpforheroes.org.uk/
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...I'm sorry, Iffy, but its a duplication...
Not really.
HfH is largely a grant-giving organisation and it gives many of those grants via the existing service charities.
In fact HfH relies on them, and senior serving officers, to tell it where to shunt its money.
The job has been thought through.
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>> ...How much of the money hfh had raised, would have gone into the pockets of
>> the legion?...
>>
>> We will never know, but I suggest it's pennies.
I would suggest its MILLIONS
How many people are going to donate to both? they will donate to one thinking they are all going in the same pot.
The British Legion thinks so, and are very upset about it.
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...I would suggest its MILLIONS...
Can't agree at all.
HfH has a big 'day' coming up with the commercial radio stations Real and Smooth.
Listeners to Real in particular are just not big givers to the legion, same as the X-Factor viewers.
...The British Legion thinks so, and are very upset about it...
Is there any evidence of this?
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Not wishing to put the cat among the pigeons here at all, but most of the lorry driving websites/transport café's/haulage firms etc have got involved with HFH and are fund raising for them.
Ask them to do that for the British Legion and it wouldn't have caught their imagination.
Pat
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>> Not wishing to put the cat among the pigeons here at all, but most of
>> the lorry driving websites/transport café's/haulage firms etc have got involved with HFH and are fund
>> raising for them.
>> Ask them to do that for the British Legion and it wouldn't have caught their
>> imagination.
>>
>> Pat
Do they know the money is NOT going to the older veterans?
Last edited by: Zero on Sun 14 Nov 10 at 12:53
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Yes, I think they do and that's the point I was trying to make, they are happy to give to HFH, where they wouldn't bother for the BL.
Before you start Z, don't shoot messenger!
Pat
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>> Yes, I think they do and that's the point I was trying to make, they
>> are happy to give to HFH, where they wouldn't bother for the BL.
Yet the majority of those who require help come from the generations who fought in the conflicts between the wars, in WW2 and in the conflicts of the 50s...
i.e. our parents and grandparents...
Perhaps what hfh shows is that the Legion should have got their act together better so hfh need not have even been formed in the first place... However I can only hope that Pat is right in that the money hfh raises is "new" money and not taking money away from the Legion.
Last edited by: hobby on Sun 14 Nov 10 at 16:12
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Ask them yourself, clearly you are not listening.
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This morning's service brought home again the sheer numbers killed in 14/18.
The population of this village in both 1911 and 1921 censuses was around 750 and almost thirty of its sons failed to return. Around 1 in 5 of those who fought. No family would have been untouched.
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Was on the A470 between Brecon and Rhaeadr at 11.00 on the way back from Cardiff - traffic was brought to a halt for a good 15 minutes in Rhaeadr as the as the war memorial is in the centre of the crossroads where the A470 winds north. Didn't really mind. It was awesomely quiet in the Millennium Stadium for a whole minute when 50000 people stood still.
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>>Was on the A470 between Brecon and Rhaeadr at 11.00 on the way back from Cardiff <<
That's a nice drive/ride - one of the few left in the southern UK, IMO.
Last night I turned on Alan Titchmarsh on Radio 2 (I know, I know) and, because it was Remembrance Sunday, the first piece of 'music' he played was a cringe-making, toe-curlingly awful song by Chelsea Pensioners.
What is going on?
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Yes - good road especially on a Sunday in Autumn/Winter with no north south Welsh Assembly gravy train traffic...!
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There was a gathering in front of the village cenotaph after the church service on the green, as there is every year. First one I can remember where there wasn't a bugle playing the Last Post. Also, watching 50 or so soldiers marching up the road ... in eerie rubber-booted silence, apart from the drill-sergeant's calls.
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Reading through the debate I missed here I have to comment that "compassion fatigue" set in in Cardiff - dozens of uniformed staff from all branches of the military with buckets collecting money for HfH, the RBL, kids collecting for school trips, buskers collecting for cancer research....it was quite ridiculous at one stage near the City Arms and the main funnelway towards the stadium....
Last edited by: Pugugly on Mon 15 Nov 10 at 11:02
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...pedant alert...pedant alert...pedant alert...pedant alert...pedant alert...pedant alert...
Strictly, there is only one Cenotaph, in Whitehall, central London.
Although some dictionaries now list cenotaph as a monument to someone whose remains are elsewhere, it is more traditional to use the term 'war memorial'.
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I think the good people of Belfast might argue with you iffy...their cenotaph has been such since at least the 1930s (without looking it up)
Last edited by: Pugugly on Mon 15 Nov 10 at 11:16
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...and the Americans as well might have something to say on the matter.
www.glts.org/memorials/dc/arlington.html
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Interesting. When I lived near Harrogate, all and sundry referred to the war memorial at the top of Parliament St. as "the cenotaph". I thought it was a generic term.
I can see our village war memorial with a few wreaths around it. Cue strong winds to send them all over the place soon.
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By the magic of Wikipedia:-
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cenotaph
From ancient greek, literally an empty tomb.
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If you are going to be a Pedant, you really need to be right.
In effect its PPP
P Poor Pedantry.
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This authoritative sounding article suggests one cenotaph and many copies:
Extract: "In any case the Cenotaph has the unusual distinction for a work of
architecture of not being unique.
"There are at least fifty-five copies in Britain and others overseas."
www.cromp.com/download/pdfdocs/Secret%20of%20the%20cenotaph.pdf
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Word Origin & History
cenotaph
c.1600, from Fr. cénotaphe (16c.), from L. cenotaphium , from Gk. kenotaphion , from kenos "empty" + taphos "tomb."
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The Americans need to copy nawt from us - the authoritative source for that is the American Declaration of Independence (note capitals)
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Armistice day - -
